EU Bans Animal Tested Products

Today marks an incredible milestone in the fight against animal testing.

After 20 years of delays, the European Union became the world's biggest cruelty-free market - banning the sale of newly animal tested cosmetics and ingredients. Any beauty product, from shampoo and mascara to toothpaste and creams will be prohibited from sale if it contains ingredients tested on animals after March 11.

“Testing cosmetics on rabbits and guinea-pigs is the ugly face of the beauty industry,” said Troy Seidle, Be Cruelty-Free campaign director for HSI. “With the EU closing its doors to animal-tested cosmetics, the beginning of the end of global cosmetics cruelty is within our grasp. EU citizens made it clear that they don’t want their mascara or shampoo to have been dripped in a rabbit’s eye or force fed to mice in massive doses, no matter where in the world that suffering has taken place. EU policymakers listened, and today is a major moral milestone in the history of ending cosmetics animal testing. Of course, cosmetics cruelty could end immediately if companies simply stopped testing on animals and selling their products in countries that require such testing. So Humane Society International sends this sincere message to the global cosmetics industry: Please don’t ignore this momentous mandate for ending animal testing. It’s time to listen to consumers; it’s time to take cruelty out of the beauty business.”

We believe in cruelty-free cosmetics, and have been actively fighting against animal testing for over 30 years. We still have much more work to do, and the fight to be cruelty-free is not over - but today we're celebrating this momentous achievement.